Verdict: With MANAGE YOUR FINANCIAL LIFE, Nancy Doyle has provided a very useful service to those seeking greater understanding and control of their financial options.

5.0

The title of Nancy Doyle’s book, MANAGE YOUR FINANCIAL LIFE, effectively sums up its purpose. The author is an independent financial consultant, without ties to any particular financial services or company. Therefore, she is in an ideal position to offer unbiased financial advice to ordinary investors, and that is what this book is meant to do.

She aims the book specifically at women, but there’s not much that’s exclusively feminine about the advice she offers; men, too, can get plenty of useful help here. Her goal is to help people “be informed and thoughtful about their finances,” which she accomplishes by offering abundant information, packed into less than 200 pages. Topics covered include how to organize, store, and regularly review one’s financial records and information; possible investment options and the advantages and disadvantages of each; how to measure a particular asset’s performance; what the fees, and/or tax burdens are for each; and how different market conditions affect them.

Never condescending to the reader, Doyle provides detailed and substantial information on a wide range of potential investments, even though some may be of only limited use to the average investor. While she uses technical language, she carefully explains the industry terms and writes clearly so most laypeople can understand with a bit of thought. She vigorously urges an organized and meticulously planned investment strategy and does not fail to lead by example.

Chapters are well-structured and organized and lead the reader logically through the investment process—from sorting out one’s current financial state to evaluating investment options, monitoring their performance, and making changes as circumstances require. Investment assets, too, are listed in order from those most common to the more esoteric, making it easier for the reader to get access to the data they are most likely to need first, without having to plow through information that is likely to be irrelevant to them. Visual aids like bullet points, charts, and tables help make complicated concepts clear and accessible, and sidebars give real-life examples, humanizing the process.

With MANAGE YOUR FINANCIAL LIFE, Nancy Doyle has provided a very useful service to those seeking greater understanding and control of their financial options.